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HE MAY have "bumped" Barack Obama from a berth at Blair House,
the guest digs at the White House, but the former prime minister
John Howard is getting anything but preferential treatment from the
US media.

The CNN presenter Anderson Cooper got stuck into Mr Howard on
his top-rating show on Wednesday for inconveniencing the
president-elect.

It was left to CNN's political correspondent Candy Crowley to
come to Mr Howard's defence. She said the arrangements would have
been scheduled months in advance - well before Mr Obama made his
request to stay at the historic townhouse.

"Let the former prime minister John Howard stay at the
Hay-Adams," Jeffrey Toobin, the senior political analyst for CNN,
said in reference to the hotel the Obamas moved to.

Mr Howard is in Washington to receive the Presidential Medal of
Freedom next week, along with the former British prime minister
Tony Blair and the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe.

The Washington Post reported that Mr Blair and Mr Uribe
had also been invited to stay at Blair House but declined President
George Bush's invitation. The newspaper headed its story "119
rooms, 70,000 square feet and one lucky Australian".

A commentator for MSNBC, Margaret Carlson, said the mansion was
so large that the Obamas and the Howards could easily share it.
"Howard wouldn't even have to share a sink with the Obamas," she
said.

An interviewer, Keith Olbermann, replied: "Given how unpopular
John Howard is in Australia at the moment, it's possible that he's
coming here to seek political asylum."